I fail to recall the exact wording of the discussion topics, but they were, in fact, non-technical — covering such lovely topics as the hardest day of my life, my biggest life challenges, and other similar “trauma-baiting” questions.

Ha, I don't think anyone who asks these questions expects that you'll respond in a fully unfiltered way... These kinds of questions are part and parcel of non-tech interview processes.

You can redirect with some subtlety "Well, my hardest ever day at work was..." to avoid talking about dead babies or whatever. Your interviewer doesn't get to look over your whole life history and determine whether your /truthfully/ chose the actual hardest ever day. So really it's a chance for you to say "Here's a [big] challenge I once faced, and here's how I survived/overcame it."

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rsoto 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, OP just unwinded himself, no filter. You can be truthful and open with friends and family, close people to you. You absolutely shouldn't when talking with strangers.

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morkalork an hour ago | parent [-]

Then strangers shouldn't fucking ask questions that could have answers that make them uncomfortable. Just a thought.

	▲	anyfoo 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		We weren't there, and the article is light on details, so we can only speculate. I see two options here: a) The potential employer vastly overstepped commonly accepted boundaries. b) It was totally implied that the questions were to be answered in the context of work. "What was the hardest challenge you had to overcome?" in that context relates to e.g. debugging a hard concurrency problem, not your divorce. What stood out to me is that whatever interpretation is the correct one, the candidate was willing to give (apparently) deeply personal answers. That's just something to adjust for in upcoming interviews, we live and learn.

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freehorse 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But why ask about "the hardest day in your life" instead eg "the hardest day at work"?

Personally asking this kind of personal questions sounds very weird. You can evaluate soft skills and culture fit by asking more relevant, professional questions. Except if the reason to ask this kind of more personal questions was sth else.

	▲	TylerE 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The cynic in me says because they want to select candidates whose work IS their life.

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an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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stared an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If they ask questions but expect fake, censored or cherry-picked answers, it says a lot about their culture.

Pro tip (for life, not only interviewing): never ask a question you don’t want to hear answer to.

	▲	40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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nsvd2 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In fact, being able to "play the game" so to speak is probably part of what the interviewer is looking for.

	▲	throwaway89864 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It is also possible that they were trying to see, if the person had traumas that would interfere with their ability to work with toxic content, do red-teaming / etc tasks.

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johnfn an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You are technically correct. But you must admit it sounds pretty bad to say "Yeah, the idea of the behavioral technical interview is the interviewer asks questions that look like they admit honest answers, but you should actually lie to them, and they expect you to lie, and actually it's a charade you play with your interviewer, and if you don't understand this (which is never explained to you) then you will immediately be rejected."

I can definitely understand the perspective of someone who has done few interviews not understanding this and being upset/confused!